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Tag: "interview"

Christopher recently joined Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers for an interview on the "Clearing the Fog" radio show. Kevin and Margaret also spoke with Mary Alice Crim from the Free Press.

From the show page:

We discuss the FCC’s plan to eliminate net neutrality on May 15. FCC chair Tom Wheeler will be deciding on new rules regarding the internet that will allow those who have wealth to have faster service and will leave the rest of us behind with internet service that ranks us between 35th and 40th in the world. The internet will become a pay-to-play entity rather than being treated as a public good – something to which all people should have the same standard of access. We will discuss the upcoming decision at length and what people are doing to stop it. And we will discuss the growing movement to municipalize internet service.

Margaret and Kevin also posted their article originally published on Alternet. They provide information about network neutrality, offer resources, and suggest action to make your voice heard.

For our 100th episode, we are excited to share a conversation with Dr. Robert Wack, city council member and driving force behind a planned open access fiber network in Westminster, Maryland. Westminster has just decided that instead of a fiber pilot project, they are going to move ahead with the first phase of a larger deployment.

Dr. Wack and I discuss how that came to be and how the network has already resulted in a committment from an employer to move more jobs into the community. We finish our discussion with a personal anecdote about the benefits of expanding the reach of telehealth applications.

The debate surrounding the proposed Comcast Time Warner Cable merger continues. The Department of Justice and the FCC ruminate over the deal while the media speculates about the future.

Governing recently published an article on potential side effects for the municipal network movement. Tod Newcombe reached out to Chris for expert opinion.

From Governing:

Partially thanks to Comcast and other cable giant's lobbying, 19 states have already passed laws that ban or restrict local communities from setting up publicly owned alternatives to the dominant provider in the area. Municipalities that pursue publicly owned broadband often cite several reasons for their efforts, ranging from lack of competition and choices in the area to a desire for faster speeds at lower costs. But Mitchell fears the lobbying power of a combined Comcast-Time Warner would choke off what little leverage remains for local governments when it comes to gaining state approval to build publicly owned broadband networks.

Unfortunately, the cable company cyclops borne out of this deal would create a ginormous lobbying monster. Comcast and Time Warner Cable wield significant political influence separately; a marriage of the two would likely damage the municipal network movement. The Center for Responsive Politics reports Comcast spent over $18 million in 2013; Time Warner Cable spent over $8 million.

Chris told Governing:

"Judging by the amount of opposition to the merger, I think people are seeing that we're at a tipping point and that there are ways they can make investments at the local level and control their own destiny," said Mitchell. "A lot of people and local businesses understand that the Internet is really important and that we can't trust it to a few corporations. But I don't see that level of understanding from most elected officials yet."

Nancy Scola, a reporter with Next City, wanted to know about municipal networks. Naturally, she turned to our own Chris Mitchell. Nancy and Chris discussed some of the most pressing issues swirling around municipal broadband. Nancy begins:

At the moment more eyes than usual are focused on high-speed Internet’s uncertain future in the United States — from “open Internet” rules and municipal-run broadband to worry over Comcast’s pending Time Warner Cable merger.

Sitting in the middle of the debate is Christopher Mitchell, the director of the Telecommunications as Commons Initiative of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. He has long advocated for city-run broadband networks such as those found in Lafayette, Louisiana, Chattanooga, Tennessee, and Bristol, Virginia.

Nancy: What’s the elevator pitch for municipal broadband?

Chris: That it’s a network responsive to local needs. Rather than decisions being made in a corporate boardroom on Wall Street, they’re being made by someone in town based on what’s going to benefit the community the most. And that’s going to be faster speeds, lower prices, better reliability, better customer service, those sorts of things.

Nancy and Chris also touch on issues such as municipal Wi-Fi, myths propagated by cable and telephone company lobbyists, and broadband as a utility.

Tim Danahey recently brought Chris Mitchell on his show to talk about municipal networks and their role in preserving network neutrality. Tim is a fan of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance and our work.

Tim is a great interviewer because he is up on the issue and politically savvy. From the show website:

If President Obama or the FCC don’t stand up for the people, the open internet will soon end. If you want to get your internet voice out to the world, you may have to pay for the priority. Furthermore, you may have to out-bid well-funded corporate internet users. The President shows no sign of upholding his 2007 promise to sustain net neutrality and his appointee to head the FCC is a communication industry insider. What can the people do? First, try to get the President to keep his promise. If he won’t, then many communities in the United States are setting-up community-owned broadband service that is up to 40 times faster than corporate-owned internet service provides. It’s also less expensive and it is becoming a powerful economic development tool for communities that have already implemented it. In fact, it’s so good that Koch-funded ALEC is trying to shut it down. But we can do it. Here’s how.

Public radio KCRW in Santa Monica recently interviewed Chris Mitchell as part of a panel on "To the Point." Host Barbara Bogaev spoke with Chris, U.S. Representative Anna Eshoo, Christopher Ali from the University of Virginia, and Gautham Nagesh from the Wall Street Journal.

Federal regulators are unveiling a plan that would create fast and slow lanes for content on the Internet. Guest host Barbara Bogaev examines how a "pay to play" broadband system would affect innovation, consumers, and the philosophy that everyone has a right to equal access to the flow of information on the web?

Chris comes into the discussion at 33:30 and brings his expertise on local issues to the conversation. FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler's recent comments included the announcement that he planned to use the FCC's power to remove preemptive state laws that have revoked local authority to decide whether a network is a wise investment.

Christopher Mitchell recently spoke with Ian Masters on the Background Briefing show from KPFK-FM in Los Angeles. Masters connected with Chris to discuss the increasing importance of community networks in light of recent court decisions: Network Neutrality and the court's interpretation of section 706 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996.

Then finally we speak with Christopher Mitchell, the Director of the Telecommunications as Commons Initiative at the Institute for Local Self Reliance about the more than 400 towns and cities across America who have installed or a planning to install fiber broadband municipal networks as an alternative to the telecom and cable monopolies who appear to have captured Obama’s FCC which is poised to end the government’s commitment to net neutrality. We discuss the need to both support municipalities who are building networks to circumvent cable monopolies with high speed broadband that other advanced nations enjoy, at the same time, holding the FCC’s feet to the fire so they don’t sell out the public and abandon net neutrality.

The Media Action Grassroots Network (MAG-Net) recently hosted a Community Cohort Call titled Tech In The City: A Conversation About Community Broadband Access. Chris Mitchell, Andrea Figueroa Martinez, John St. Julien from Lafayette, and other community broadband advocates discuss the current state of U.S. broadband infrastructure.

Chris offers perspective on monopolistic behavior from current mega providers and how they find ways to limit our options. What can we do to counteract the powerful cable and telecommunications lobbies to preserve an open and free Internet? How can we guarantee affordable access? This panel discussion looks at long-term strategies and actions we can take now.

This week we are welcoming Scott Bradner, a long time doer, writer, and thinker on Internet matters. Thanks to a listener request, we had already recorded an interview last week discussing peering before the news broke that the FCC would be allowing paid prioritization peering arrangements, which many have said represents the end of network neutrality. We talked prior to the announcement of the FCC's upcoming rules so we do not discuss them directly.

We explain what "peering" is and why it is essential to the Internet. It gets a little technical but we try to bring it back with simple examples.

Our take on the Comcast-Netflix deal may surprise some listeners because the arrangement is not as far from the tradition of paid interconnection arrangement as some strong supporters of network neutrality maintain. However, we are explicit in noting that monopoly providers like Comcast may abuse their market power to shake down companies like Netflix. That is worrisome but may best be dealt with using other means aside from changing the way peering has historically worked.

We end the show discussing the consolidation of ISPs and the role of symmetry in peering.

The Community Broadband Bits podcast this week focuses on what people can do to start building a grassroots effort for a network in their community. John St Julien of Lafayette, Louisiana, returns to the show to discuss what they did and ideas for others to follow.

John was last on the show for episode 19, where we focused more on the specific approach used in Lafayette.

We discuss the early challenges and ideas for how to engage others, who may be the best people to approach, and how to maintain a sense of progress during what may be a very challenging organizing effort.

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This is not a new idea. The concept of common carriage is ancient in culture. It is deeply embedded in common law. It goes back almost two thousand years. Net neutrality is simply common carriage for the 21st century. It is the same idea we had in the 18th- century turnpikes. We fought it over canals. We fought it over railroads and we fought it over public roads when public roads were first beginning. To me, that's fundamental and it's a fundamental reason why the towns in Vermont wanted to do and do it as a public activity.